China has sought to evade its international responsibilities for a quarter of a century

Editorial: A new resolution points to the Chinese central government being able to establish security command centres in Hong Kong, presumably to crush any dissent, and restrict criticism of the People’s Republic

Saturday 23 May 2020 00:08 BST
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President Xi Jinping arrives for the opening session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing yesterday
President Xi Jinping arrives for the opening session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing yesterday (AFP/Getty)

Ever since Hong Kong was, rightly, relinquished by the British colonial authorities and restored to Chinese sovereignty more than two decades ago, Beijing has been playing cat and mouse with its inhabitants.

Now, once again comes a none-too-stealthy attempt to undermine Hong Kong’s right to determine its own affairs, with Beijing trying, as before, to impose its will on the territory via some fresh law-making. In the middle of a pandemic, China still has time to fuss about its awkward province.

On and off for almost a quarter of a century China has sought to evade its international responsibilities under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, a treaty recognised by the United Nations, and to tighten its grip on the internal affairs of the autonomous and relatively free Hong Kong region. In 2003 and again last year the attempts to do so were resisted, overwhelmingly peacefully, by the people of Hong Kong. They remain content with their democratic structures, independent judiciary, free and critical press, successful financial markets, and the rule of law. The pragmatic “One Country, Two Systems” policy towards Hong Kong devised by the then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in the 1990s still suits the people of Hong Kong; the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party seems to have tired of it.

Hence Beijing’s latest attempt to undermine Hong Kong’s special status and precious liberties. In its earliest vague form of a resolution, it has created much anxiety. It points towards the Chinese central government being able unilaterally to establish security command centres in the territory, presumably to crush any dissent, and restrict criticism of the People’s Republic. In particular the resolution, which will eventually be converted into law, targets secessionist tendencies. Such sensitivities were heightened in the most recent protests when, bizarrely, the colonial era flag, complete with union flag in the canton, was adopted by democracy protesters as their banner. If their intention was to distress and alarm President Xi and his colleagues they seem to have succeeded.

The issue of secession is an ironic one, as well as a transcendent and sensitive one. Before the brutal suppression of the protests last year there was little appetite for independence in Hong Kong from China (unlike the growing separatist movement in Taiwan). But the very actions of the Chinese authorities served only to make Hong Kongers consider such a previously outlandish idea. That, in turn, has prompted China to try and prevent any such moves. Having suffered humiliations, dismemberment and mass murder under Japanese and European colonisers for a century before Mao’s revolution reunified the Middle Kingdom in 1949, China’s leadership has remained paranoid about threats to integrity of the state – hence also their repressive policies in Tibet and the appalling treatment of the Uighur Muslims.

Yet such policies in the new, more prosperous China, and especially in Hong Kong, are becoming counterproductive. No one is suggesting China is going to fragment, but its more aggressive and self-assertive policies at home and abroad both worry its own citizens and alienate other nations that should have little cause for grievance with Beijing.

Someone should remind Deng’s successors of the wisdom of one confident, united and growing superpower tolerating many different systems.

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